The present invention is related generally to wireless networks, and in particular, to throughput optimization in wireless mesh networks.
A wireless mesh network is a mesh network implemented over a wireless network system such as wireless local area network (LAN). As such, wireless mesh networks have been considered as a practical wireless solution for providing community broadband internet access service and other wireless services. In some cases, nodes (e.g., transmitters) in wireless mesh networks may be equipped with multiple radios (e.g., multiple sources) and may be capable of transmitting over multiple orthogonal channels simultaneously.
For a traditional network, each intermediate node forwards received information to the next node (e.g., the next hop). This method of forwarding information is inefficient and occupies excessive capacity. While transmission may occur over multiple channels in such networks, the resources of wireless mesh networks are finite and it is difficult to efficiently utilize the wireless resources.
Therefore, there remains a need to improve throughput in wireless mesh networks.